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November

I received the following question from Josh this morning (thanks so much for the question!):

But I’m hoping you can clarify that for me based off your experience. I cold pickled some cukes a while back. The other day, I finished the jar and added a new batch of fresh cukes to the brine. Leaving it out on my counter top overnight, I was surprised to wake up in the morning to find that the fermentation process had kicked started and was in full action.

Now is this safe? Can I maintain this brine and use it over and over again? Or is there a sweet spot where the brine stops working and I venture into dangerous territory?

This is our 5th year of writing about hunting; if you’re new to our posts on the subject, here’s a few things you should know. 1) There will be no gory photos (if we change this decision in the future you will have ample warning before scrolling to see them). 2) We eat everything we hunt; in years that our cabin doesn’t kill animals, we eat far less meat (and already live on a meat-reduced diet). 3) If you’re looking for the basics of where to start or how I’ve decided to do this (even after years of living as a near-vegetarian), my article An Introduction To Hunting in Ontario (Moose, Deer and Birds; Confessions of a one-time “Vegetarian” is a great place to start. 4) This series will run through Friday. You can find this years series here.

Thursday, October 24th, 2013. 8:30AM

We got off to a slow start this morning.

The pressure is off the hunt and we only have calf tags left. There’s no great passion in harvesting (killing) calves except:

1 out of 2 will perish through the winter. Culling calves (in much the same way that other herds and plants) will make more food available to the survivors. The hunt is a controlled hunt meant to maximize the population for future hunts (and others to enjoy as well of course).

It’s good learning and we’re here to hunt. As someone who’s hunted for 25 years and never had the opportunity to shoot anything larger than a bird, the challenge looms over my head. I’m sure that’s difficult for some to read but it’s the full truth – I’ve never had the opportunity to shoot a moose and I won’t know if I can until the opportunity presents itself, thus it’s something I long for….

When I grew up, we rarely ate the heart of the animals we harvested (although we did have another tradition involving it that’s best told in person – so if we ever meet, you’ll have to ask!)

The main reason for not consuming it? We just didn’t know what to do. A few of the hunters I hunt with have been on a mission to use a few of the ‘odd bits’ in the last few years and we’ve had a great success with hearts in the last few years. I’ve also seen them for sale at farmers markets and they tend to be remarkably affordable compared to other parts of the animal.

Over the last few years, many farmers in the Toronto area have learned to extend summer and fall crops into the fall through planting different crops, cold frames, natural greenhouses, different storage techniques, trenches dug under the frost line and more.

We’re still finding arugula, carrots, and tomatoes (they’ve been ripened in storage). Looking for a bigger taste of summer, we made a great dressing with strawberry jam tonight.

We try to use every part that we can of every animal we harvest. We consume the meat, preserve soup from the bones, eat the tongue and heart, donate the hides to the First Nations and the bottom jaw is given to the Ministry of Natural Resources to assess the health of the population.

We had the preserve swap last night. A giant thanks to all those who showed up (as well as to the staff and friends at the Handlebar). Several hundred preserves were swapped – and many more stories were shared between many regulars at Home Ec as well as a lot of new faces. We had so much fun and hope everyone else did too!

We’re fortunate to have had our friend Margaret Mulligan capturing the evening again! Margaret is an amazing professional photographer (her personal photoblog is here) came across town lugging her camera and took some amazing shots of the night.

A few weeks ago we shared instructions on how to turn dried mustard seeds into caviar-like pearls. We decided to cure a batch of them to make this mustard seed salt. They are great to add in a rub, to finish whitefish or as part of a salad (they are great in our simple arugula salad).

Our apartment has been cool these days – so cool that fermentation has been slow. This wouldn’t be a problem except we’re fermenting ginger beer and mustard for two different upcoming social events so needed to give them a boost.

Here’s a quick trick to temporarily speed up fermentation of small batches of fermenting:

I love breakfast in Autumn. The crisp air and morning light lends itself to heartier breakfasts than the heat of summer. Being that I prefer lunch over breakfast, and heartier breakfasts are my kind of thing.